I’m just going to assume here that you post fiction on your blog, and that you want more exposure for it. With that extra exposure, hopefully you’ll sell more books. Here’s five ways to promote your fiction using Twitter.

Oh, wait, before we get down to brass tacks here, let me just make sure you’re starting from the right spot. You need a Twitter account, and you need to make sure it is public.

One more thing – if you are looking to use your fiction as a way to gain readers and hopefully fans, you are almost always best off writing a serial of some sort. The hope is that readers will come back to find out what happens next.

Tweet #1 – Five Second Fiction

This is where you tell a whole story in a single tweet. And you don’t even have a whole tweet to do it, because you have to put #5secfic in your tweet. I’m pretty sure you get bonus points for working a pun into the story.

So that fans can discover your *ahem* longer pieces, make sure you have a link to your website/blog in your twitter profile.

Examples

#5secfic Bubba put down the wrench and put the baggie in his pants, giving new meaning to the term “Plumber’s Crack.”

#5secfic If only Jim had at least sent flowers he would still have a windshield and all of his left shoes.

Tweet #2 – Pimp My Story

Every Saturday, kira at EpiGuide puts together a digest of recent releases in of web fiction serials. To participate use the hashtag #pimpmystory when tweeting about your latest chapter.

Example

The Journey of St. Laurent: In Chapter 38, it’s finally time for UFOs vs Survivalists. http://bit.ly/dqCuzM #pimpmystory

This is another way to promote the most recent chapter in your online serial. To participate here, sometime during the week tweet about the latest installment of your epic alien romance story using the hashtag #TuesdaySerial, then on the next Tuesday, go visit http://tuesdayserial.com/?page_id=1527 and submit your entry following the instructions on that page.

Example (of the tweet)

The redone and expanded Chapter 38 of The Journey of St. Laurent is up http://bit.ly/dqCuzM #TuesdaySerial

This one is a little different. This is one you can’t do yourself. You have to write something good enough for somebody else to tweet about it. They just put the hashtag #WebFicWed and a link to your site or a page with some of your fiction.

Don’t be lame and start a new twitter account just so you can suggest yourself. Seriously. Although, I think it would be fair to mention somewhere on your blog/website “If you like this fiction, please tweet me for #WebFicWed”. I guess I’m not so awesome, because nobody had ever tweeted me up for this.

Example:

Check out J. Dane Tyler for #WebFicWed. Great short horror stories. http://jdanetyler.wordpress.com